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Is the phrase "have overweight" from England/Australia/a largely English-speaking country?

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Countandsubtract
Countandsubtract Posts: 276 Member
edited June 2022 in Debate Club
This question is primarily for native English-speakers from outside the United States:

Only in the last couple of months have I come across sentences like "I have overweight."

Typically I've seen "overweight" used as an adjective, not a noun. ("They ARE overweight.") If someone wanted to say that someone had too much fat on their body, they would have said "excess weight" or "excess fat."

Is this a recent change or is it just that I wasn't exposed to the phrasing through US media? (Is it the typical phrasing of the concept in Australia or somewhere?)

I've heard the phrase "she's poorly," which wouldn't be the typical US phrasing for "she's not feeling well." I wonder if "have overweight" might have a similar history.

Most of the times that I've seen it are from the same source, so it's also possible that the particular writer is influenced by another language.

Was it an intentional change to the language?

I don't know if I'm expected to change my phrasing or if doing so would cause employers to question my fluency in English.

I'm not as much looking for a debate as an answer, but this seemed like the closest category.

Thanks!
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Replies

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    "I am overweight" or "they are overweight" or "he/she is overweight" are what is said in the US...not sure about other English speaking countries. "I have overweight" is probably a typo as that is not an English phrase anywhere that I am aware of.
  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,329 Member
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    Nope, not correct use of overweight. You were right originally. It’s “I am overweight”, or “they are overweight” or “she is overweight”.

    But having said that - what is currently linguistically correct will change over time. I have never heard “I have overweight” but in time it may become popular and thus accepted.

    The English language is dreadful to learn as a first language - I take my hat off to anyone who is fluent in it as a second or third language!!
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,109 Member
    edited June 2022
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    English is not my actual mother tongue, but close enough to it. I'm regularly 'exposed' to both US and UK English (and occasional Australian), and I've never heard 'I have overweight'.
    I doubt it's a standard expression anywhere, but perhaps in some dialect?
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,400 Member
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    I don't know, but what you may be seeing is someone who doesn't have English as a first language and is translating the phrase from their language into English. My husband (Italian) tends to do this, and what comes out is--interesting.
  • Countandsubtract
    Countandsubtract Posts: 276 Member
    edited June 2022
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    Glad to know I wasn't the only one. 😊


    The English language is dreadful to learn as a first language - I take my hat off to anyone who is fluent in it as a second or third language!!

    I know! And we keep changing it and making it worse!
    I think that the hyper-connected teens of today will end up creating more slang terms and phrases than the ten generations prior.

    If I ever have grandkids I think they'll just say, "Yeah, no thanks, the world will switch to Spanish. English never makes sense."


    and what comes out is--interesting.
    😊
    That reminds me of some interesting google translate results.
    Me: something about schools
    Google translate: ...apricot...
    Me: ?

    Sorry, I didn't know this before: After you guys responded, I found these. Not all of livestrong's pages have dates so it's hard to tell if this changed over time, but the titles and the address titles don't match, so I think they made some alterations later on...



    https://www.livestrong.com/article/333266-im-overweight-can-i-build-muscle/

    I Have Overweight: Can I Build Muscle? | livestrong



    https://www.livestrong.com/article/526121-does-being-overweight-make-you-tired/

    Does Having Overweight Make You Tired? | livestrong
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,964 Member
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    I agree with the above commenters, but just wanted to add that "she's poorly" used to be heard in the U.S., at least regionally to mean "she's not [feeling] well."
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
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    There are a lot of things in the english language where we say "I am <adjective>" that in other languages are expressed as "I have <noun>" such as in spanish. If they are non-native english speakers, they may be translating word-for-word from their primary language.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
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    ..(some common examples translate as "I have hunger" versus "I am hungry", "I have X years" versus "I am X years old",..)
  • siberiantarragon
    siberiantarragon Posts: 265 Member
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    A variation of it was used on Gilmore Girls once. Lorelai said that her dad "has weight" meaning that he is overweight. It was so odd of a phrasing that I still remember it a couple of years after I watched the episode. That's the only time I have ever encountered that phrase being used.

    As to answer your question, the recent usage might be part of the general linguistic trends that are supposed to reduce stigma around health conditions. Instead of saying "She is autistic" or "He is an addict" now you're supposed to say "She has autism" or "He has an addiction." The idea behind this is that it's considered to be less stigmatizing and less like you're defining the person by their health conditions.. However the problem is that sometimes this can get very clunky, like with "has overweight."
  • bojaantje3822
    bojaantje3822 Posts: 257 Member
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    siberiantarragon wrote: »
    As to answer your question, the recent usage might be part of the general linguistic trends that are supposed to reduce stigma around health conditions. Instead of saying "She is autistic" or "He is an addict" now you're supposed to say "She has autism" or "He has an addiction." The idea behind this is that it's considered to be less stigmatizing and less like you're defining the person by their health conditions.. However the problem is that sometimes this can get very clunky, like with "has overweight."

    Actually that's not what you're "supposed" to say at all. You're supposed to listen to the person who will tell you what they prefer. To some, saying 'autistic person' is insulting, to others saying 'person with autism' is insulting. From what I've seen, person-first language (so person with X) is being pushed on people by well-meaning and sometimes not so well-meaning "allies" who forget to respect the person. It's a big debate and you can google it yourself but I just wanted to point out a lot of autistic people hate being called people with autism and that's true for many other people as well so don't assume person-first language is the norm right now, or even something everyone wants to work towards.
  • naturallykat
    naturallykat Posts: 115 Member
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    English person here. Definitely not a phrase we use and would strongly suggest to me that the person who is using it is not a native speaker.

    We use "I am overweight."
  • Countandsubtract
    Countandsubtract Posts: 276 Member
    edited July 2022
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    @lynn_glenmont
    Interesting. In settler times or pretty recently? I'd imagine in colonial times, at least, american English would have been pretty similar to european English.


    @ritzvin
    Yeah, the first time I saw it, that's more or less what I was thinking. The lack of a commonly-used single-word noun, equivalent to the adjective, doesn't really make that formula easy to use. I could see how that would happen. (We usually say "excess weight."...but now that I think of it "I have excess weight" would actually sound nearly normal.)

    (Yes, I added commas where there shouldn't be any, but I added them where I would have paused verbally. I hope the commas make it easier to follow.)


    @siberiantarragon
    Ahh, Gilmore Girls! Although as I recall, they "broke English" for comedic value quite often. (Yet they never really finished the plotline with the barista...(sigh))

    supposed to reduce stigma
    Very possible, and I think your word "clunky" hits it right on the head.


    @siberiantarragon & @bojaantje3822
    I think those are definite possibilities, and yes, I've noticed that what the government and corporate policies tell us we're "supposed to" say are rarely acceptable or respectful to the people the words are applied to. I've definitely seen that particular push towards adjectives as well... I wonder where some of these phrases come from anyway...

    Page is glitching again...I'll continue to respond a little later!
  • Countandsubtract
    Countandsubtract Posts: 276 Member
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    @naturallykat
    Yay! I'm glad to get input from an additional dialect. I didn't want to make assumptions just based on my own experiences.
  • Countandsubtract
    Countandsubtract Posts: 276 Member
    edited July 2022
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    @mtaratoot
    Good plan,
    "I made you a cookie, but I eateded it."


    You'll need your energy
    "Da dog livez heah furmanently nao."



    As for myself,
    "I'm going completely organic and will grow my own food"


    (The cat has a bunch of baby hampsters on it.)
    Sorry for going low tech. I've downloaded too many apps.


    1)https://www.firedog.co.uk/thinking-space/news-opinions/grey-matters/the-history-of-the-internet/
    2)https://www.pinterest.com/pin/320811173453562804/
    3)https://cheezburger.com/9126874624
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,984 Member
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    Posting from Australia. Where ' I have overweight' is no t a phrase I h ave ever heard spoken or seen in writing.

    There was a fad of deliberately using wrong grammar for effect on memes and such, saying things like ' I have sads' - so perhaps 'I have overweight' was used in that way too.

    Or is a translation from a person with english as a second language.

    If you travel through Asia you often see signs translated into not quite right English - one of my favourite was in a clothing store ' women have fits upstairs' :*

  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,175 Member
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    Pet peeve that's used all the time:

    Pre-registration required.

    So... What am I supposed to do before I register? Because it should just be registration required. You can't register after an event has occurred. Even "advanced registration required" doesn't work. "Register before June 22" works.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,964 Member
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    Countandsubtract wrote: »
    @lynn_glenmont
    Interesting. In settler times or pretty recently? I'd imagine in colonial times, at least, american English would have been pretty similar to european English.

    Well, this is a little embarrassing, but when I think of the "she's poorly," in my head I hear Irene Ryan saying it in her role as Granny on the 1960s sit com "The Beverly Hillbillies." So, "pretty recently" (at least compared to settler times) television scriptwriters thought that people in some geographically unspecified (at least, I don't think they ever indicated exactly where the Clampetts were from), extremely remote rural areas used the phrase.
  • Countandsubtract
    Countandsubtract Posts: 276 Member
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    :)
    It certainly indicates they were aware of the phrase in a time before the world was quite as excessively conected (with high speed internet on mobile devices).
    Cool, thanks for the follow-up!

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